Chelsea Clinton Visits AWF Projects

Earlier this month, Chelsea Clinton, vice chair of the Clinton Foundation, visited AWF’s Kazungula landscape in Zambia. This region hosts the largest elephant population in Africa, which historically has led to conflict with local communities. Clinton toured two of AWF’s solutions to this conflict: the Lupani Conservation Primary School, rebuilt by AWF in exchange for the local community setting aside land for elephants to travel safely, and the brand new Machenje Fishing Lodge, which provides revenue and jobs to locals and funds elephant patrols. “Given the current rate of poaching of elephants in Africa, it’s vital to understand how people are living alongside wildlife in a way that benefits people and communities as well as protects the species,” Clinton said.

Elephants’ New Lease on Life

AWF signed more than 700 new land leases this month, securing an additional 7,000 acres for elephants, and other wildlife, to have a safe haven to roam in the Amboseli ecosystem. “Partnering with communities to find innovative solutions to secure wildlife habitats allows us to reduce conflict and protect wildlife while also providing benefits to people,” says AWF’s VP for Conservation Strategy, Kathleen Fitzgerald. Working with the Maasai community at the Olguluilui Group Ranch, we launched the land lease program more than five years ago to extend elephants’ ranges in the areas surrounding Amboseli National Park, and we have, to date, protected more than 25,000 acres in the ecosystem.

Vote: What’s the Cutest Weird Animal?

Honoring Our Rangers

A New Class

Threads for Wildlife

We’re asking for your help to identify Africa’s cutest weird animal! Some of the continent’s less conventionally beautiful creatures are still appealing in their own right, but sometimes it can be hard to get attention when you’re living next to elephants, rhinos, and lions. During the next few days, visit the poll, and vote for your favorite—the bat-eared fox, the warthog, the hyrax, or the pangolin. Voting closes Sept. 2, and we’ll announce your winner next week.

AWF works closely with our wildlife rangers and scouts across the continent of Africa and relies on them to provide on-the-ground wildlife monitoring and protection. They are the first line of defense against poaching and are first on the scene to tend to poachers’ victims. World Ranger Day, July 31, celebrates our rangers and remembers those who lost their lives protecting wildlife, but we at AWF know they deserve to be honored every day for their courage and sacrifice.

AWF welcomes our second class of the Conservation Management Trainee Program (CMTP). The three new trainees—Sarah from South Africa (pictured above), Edwin from Zimbabwe, and Yohannes from Ethiopia—are joining the program. “I was looking for an organization which would invest in me and simultaneously recognize my potential to invest in it. CMTP was the ideal opportunity,” Sarah said. Read their blogs as their training gets underway.

AWF and ThreadStart Select are embarking on a new partnership. The t-shirt and accessory designer is launching a brand-new design and corresponding campaign each month, focusing on African wildlife and AWF’s work—and $8 of each custom-designed item will benefit AWF. The partnership spotlights —through an exciting new video—some of AWF’s critical efforts, like elephant conservation, to bring awareness and support to these programs through a new medium.